Psychedelics Part 2: How do drugs alter our perceptions? | Boris Heifets

Today, we're going to talk about how psychedelics alter our perception of reality and what that says about... reality!

Welcome  to part two of our conversation with Stanford anesthesiologist and psychedelics researcher Boris Heifets!

Last time, we talked with Boris about the question of why psychedelics help people with mental health disorders.

This week, we're going to dive into a different question, which is to explore how psychedelics work in the brain. How are they able to alter something as fundamental as our perceptions of reality — and could understanding these effects teach us about the nature of our everyday perceptions?

Learn more:

• Review: Therapeutic mechanisms of psychedelics and entactogens (Heifets and Olsen, 2024)
• As psychedelics near approval, there’s no consensus on how they work (STAT News, 2023)
• How do psychedelics work? (Carhart-Harris, 2019)
• Heifets Lab website

Episode credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.